I know the Taliban has to bluster for the sake of morale and stuff, and ITG and all that shiat, but there's a dark immature little part of me that wants to say "challenge accepted" and show them what terror really looks like.

OBL is dead, 9/11 happened over 10 years ago. WTF haven't we left ALREADY?!?

Nation building? FARK that. The only way to make Afghanistan into a western-style first world democracy would be to seal the ENTIRE border, kill every male over 5 years old, and colonize the place with about 3 million WASP famlies.

MemeSlave:Since we arent afraid of the Russians anymore and have pretty much surrendered to the Chinese, what strategic value does Afghanistan have?

Proposed oil/gas pipeline routes, for one.

In 1998, Dick Cheney, now US vice-president but then chief executive of a major oil services company, remarked: "I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian." But the oil and gas there is worthless until it is moved. The only route which makes both political and economic sense is through Afghanistan. (Link)

And all those farkers who rag on about "they're trying to make a one world nation to suppress us" who are invariably conservative fail to realize that the Republican corporations are so deeply in business there it's like... It's like that's the reason the Taleban hate them!

MooseUpNorth:I know the Taliban has to bluster for the sake of morale and stuff, and ITG and all that shiat, but there's a dark immature little part of me that wants to say "challenge accepted" and show them what terror really looks like.

/ Meh. Land war in Asia.

I feel you. Let's hear their sabres rattle when their homes, crops, livestock, mosques, family and friends are on fire in the middle of the night in January thanks to satellites that you can't hide from and bombs that may as well have been dropped by Allah himself.

It's pretty obvious we don't have the stomach for that sort of thing anymore, and thus will always lose a game of "who's the bigger psychopath..."

KidKorporate:MooseUpNorth: I know the Taliban has to bluster for the sake of morale and stuff, and ITG and all that shiat, but there's a dark immature little part of me that wants to say "challenge accepted" and show them what terror really looks like.

/ Meh. Land war in Asia.

I feel you. Let's hear their sabres rattle when their homes, crops, livestock, mosques, family and friends are on fire in the middle of the night in January thanks to satellites that you can't hide from and bombs that may as well have been dropped by Allah himself.

It's pretty obvious we don't have the stomach for that sort of thing anymore, and thus will always lose a game of "who's the bigger psychopath..."

True, life would be simpler if duels on the green were still legal and we could vape people with space lasers.

KidKorporate:It's pretty obvious we don't have the stomach for that sort of thing anymore, and thus will always lose a game of "who's the bigger psychopath..."

Precisely. Irrational people don't respond properly to incentives; even NPR yesterday had an examination of how warped the Taliban mind is. Our options are to ignore or destroy them; there's no feasible middle ground. Pussyfooting around will prolong a small-scale war of attrition that will always hurt the US population and psyche more than it hurts the Taliban.

I realize that we like to keep a couple of guard dogs near all the oil so that they wont start trading it in anything but our currency, but could we cut the "freedom fighters" bullsh*t and stop pretending we're doing any good for these sandlocked, bargain basement countries or ourselves?

runwiz:So let's just get out now and save $80 billion (and 100+ lives) for this year.

Sadly, that 80 billion will disappear like a rat up a downspout immediately into some other pork barrel and those now safe and well soldiers will play hell finding jobs. Still a good idea to stop pestering these lunatics in Afghanistan, though.